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Dale, Southampton

Dale lives in a five-bedroom, detached house with his partner in Southampton, and he had his smart meter installed in July 2017. Dale enjoys having a smart meter because he no longer has to go outside to take a manual meter reading. Instead, he can use his in-home display (IHD) to comfortably check how much energy he’s using, whenever he wants to.

I keep my IHD on the kitchen table top, where I check it once a day in order to compare my daily energy use, so I can better manage my energy consumption and costs. There are periods of time when the weather suddenly turns cold, and you need to turn up the heating and use more energy than you’ve budgeted for. It’s so useful having a smart meter at these times, because it provides me with information on how much energy I’m using and what it’s costing. It means I can feel confident in using the energy I need and avoid any nasty surprises when my energy bill arrives.

The smart meter installation process was really quick and smooth, we had no problems. The engineer who came to install the smart meter was very pleasant and informative. He was more than happy to let me watch him during the installation and talked me through each step. He even offered me energy saving tips at the end of the installation process, and told me how to operate the smart meter, which was really useful.

Having a smart meter has really helped me to see which appliances are using the most energy. I recently replaced my TV set with a smart TV, which has internet connectivity and other smart functions. Without my smart meter, I would never have noticed my new Smart TV consumed more energy than the previous one. I noticed that even when in standby mode, the smart TV consumed quite a bit of electricity because of its constant internet connectivity and background activities. I have since changed the settings, which has helped me to reduce its energy consumption, and in the long run, will hopefully save me some money.